After the Great Leap Forward, 2 Steps Back

No pictures today. They'd be ugly.

Sat. Jan. 30: The (bad) plan yesterday was to fit the port side chine in place, then remove the chines, remove the sides from the molds, and to epoxy and rescrew the chines to the sides. The idea was that would give more room to get the epoxy between the chines and sides. Well, Capt. JT and I fit the port side chine on easily and quickly, benefitting from the experience we gained on Thursday installing the starboard chine. But taking the sides off the molds was a fisaco. With the sides and chines now straight, the screw holes didn't line up. I quickly abandoned that task and cleaned the epoxy off the sides and chines before it hardened and ruined all those parts.

Today was rainy, so no work could be done, but I spent the day evaluating what has been done and planning the next steps. The too-wide stem bevel has been worrying me, and I finally concluded that it causes too many problems to accept. It strains the side panels at the chine end of the stem to the breaking point, so it's a point of weakness, and the distortion of the shape at the chine/stem joint looks bad (at least it does if you know to look closely) and might affect sailing performance a little. The side panels are already epoxied to the stem, and detaching them would take dynamite. So I need to- I hate to say it- cut the side panels near the bow, butt new pieces to replace what is cut away, and recut the stem bevel or make a new stem. I think I know the correct bevel to put on the stem, but I'm going to make a sample piece to test that I'm right.

Changing the stem bevel will change the shape of the joints between the chines and stem, so I may also need to cut new chines.

Naturally, I'm reluctant to take a step back and rebuild the bow, but it won't require new materials besides what I already have on hand; just work. I can fix the problem now, but couldn't if the bottom were already on. So that's what I'm going to do.

There-having confessed my sins and resolved to atone for them, I feel better already. Sister Paraclete would grudgingly approve, but she'd probably still hit me with her yard stick.